


Snows II: Running

by Teland



Series: Snows [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-01-06
Updated: 1999-01-06
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/pseuds/Teland
Summary: I've seen him watching me.





	Snows II: Running

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ciceqi for beta!

I've seen him watching me. 

He has to know. Hell, our eyes have even met once or   
twice.

Four times, actually. The first was in some unmapped   
town in Nebraska. The sort of town that makes you think   
"village" and start looking for the town well and stoning   
grounds.

He shouldn't have been there. Plaid and denim aside,   
everything about Alex screams "outsider" in such a place.   
Or maybe it's just the fact that I was staring at him   
myself. Waiting.

He's been a regular informant for some months now, and  
I've been trained to consider his presence a prelude to a   
hint, a clue, something. 

That's not precisely true, though. He's never *showed*   
himself when he was handing off information. Not since   
the first time. Or the first time I knew it was him. Or the  
first time he didn't just let me beat him. Something.

It's always an envelope in my paper at those times, and   
sometimes there's an accompanying phone call. The   
first time he called me it was because I was taking too   
long to follow up. I've since resisted the urge to hold on  
to his scraps in the hope of more... He either calls or he   
doesn't.

Just a few words, nothing more insinuating than his   
own voice, nothing more satisfying than his own   
dubious confirmation of a list of numbers or addresses.

And not even that when I see him.

The last time was just last night. The streetlights were   
bouncing off the day's snowfall, and the entire world   
seemed strangely orange. It was lighting my apartment,   
and I wanted to sleep. I went to the window to pull down   
the shade, and there he was, sitting on the hood of his   
car. Crosslegged and blank-faced. Too much. It was after   
three a.m., and thus, perhaps, safe, but...

He's not supposed to be so *obviously* hallucinatory.

It's only natural that I'd feel him in every shadow. We've   
had too much history for this latest game of his not to   
make me even more paranoid. But he's not supposed to   
*really* be there. When I looked again, he was still there.   
He'd even shifted a little, perhaps so I could be *sure* I   
wasn't... fantasizing. 

When I went to sleep, I dreamed of him.

I've always felt it was a cheat to dream something that   
really *was* on your mind just before you went to bed --   
why can't I ever do it on purpose? -- but there it was. 

In the dream, I'm running through city streets, and the   
snow has drifted. It's up to my knees in places. There are   
no other footprints, no sound but my own breath and the   
heavy winter silence. The city is empty. 

The future, then.

I look down, and even though I'm wearing nothing but old   
sweats, I'm not cold. And then, of course, I'm cold. It's   
an almost seamless change from casual run to slow torture   
and impending frostbite. Almost. I couldn't see my breath   
before, and now I can. 

It blocks out the scenery with each puff, just slightly too   
thick to be real. I never stop running. 

I ask myself what I'm running from, and then I hear the  
footsteps behind me. I turn, and it is, of course, Alex. 

He's perfectly realized, finely rendered in the same padded  
jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots I just saw him in. But   
he's not running, just moving after me, like I'm towing a   
statue on a rolling platform. 

And then I *am* towing him, and even though his   
expression is no blanker than the one I just saw, I wake   
up shuddering. 

I get up, write a report, and go for a run. My first clue   
that this will be a less than restful night is that my   
apartment suddenly leads directly out into woods. 

I curse myself for not noticing that I couldn't see a word   
I'd written in the -- brilliant, of course -- report, but   
it fades fast. I'm happy I'm wearing shoes this time. 

The woods are familiar. I look up and it's the thick canopy  
of the rainforest, and the sun is strained darkly through   
the green. But the snow is still up to my knees, and when I   
look up again it's New England evergreens at night. It's   
always soothing to have things match up within a dream.

And there are Alexes everywhere. 

Sitting calmly on a tree stump, leaning against nothing   
at all... waiting for me to run up and chase him. I wait   
until I get one that smirks at me before I leave my chosen   
path. 

But he doesn't run, just stands there and waits for me to   
get to him, which I do, much too quickly. I push at him   
and he looks at me like I'm insane for a moment before   
shrugging awkwardly and running off with a small sigh.

This is where I want to wake up shuddering again, but   
instead I just run. Bogged down here by a drift, tripping   
over a tree root there. 

It begins to snow again, and I quickly lose Alex in the   
stinging wind and darkness. The moon has been quite   
accurately hidden by slate clouds. I stop to catch my   
breath against a tree that's only too smooth for the space  
of a heartbeat and there's Alex again, some fifteen yards   
away. Revealed by an obliging gust, or perhaps just by   
his own obliging self.

It continues that way for a long while, and I feel myself   
running easier. I know I'm falling into a deeper sleep, but   
there's nothing I can do. Alex, of course, takes advantage   
by refusing to run any further. I crash into him, and for a   
moment I'm passing *through* him into something like   
freedom... But the image is too much somehow, and I am   
slapped back into my ruthless re-creation of reality, and   
to the ground. 

Alex settles beside me and sighs again.

"You could just let the real you catch me some time. You're  
gonna be exhausted when you wake up."

I'm looking up into the sky, and I'm glad I've never seen   
snow this beautiful before. It's crystalline, soft and   
gently painful -- I would have frozen to death years ago.   
"Why do *I* have to do all the work?" 

"This *is* just a dream."

"But it's an obvious echo of my life."

"Our lives."

"You're not really here."

"You want me to be."

"Fine. So let's pretend you're really you, Alex. Tell me   
why you're screwing with me?"

"Everything I say will just be your own analyses of the   
situation."

"Humor me."

"If I was the real me, I'd probably hit you."

"No you wouldn't. Alex never hits me unless I hit him   
first. He's barely even threatened me."

Alex snickers. "You're proving my point, you know."

I glower at the sky, and it stops snowing until my face   
evens out again. "OK, you're not Alex. Just tell me my   
latest theory on why Alex won't come get me, once and for   
all."

"He knows you'd lay back and take it, but believes you   
would instantly deny it. He would gain power by being   
the... taken... one."

"No, that's the *old* theory. He loves me, and is afraid   
I'll reject him."

"Yes, but that's your Muldertheory. I assumed you   
wanted your Alextheory."

At that point, it was finally too confusing to be a dream,   
and I woke up.

At least, I'm pretty sure I did. The problem with those  
nested dreams is that you're never sure you're awake   
when you *do* wake up. I know from experience that I'll   
have this vague feeling of paranoia until something comes   
along to distract me. 

Well, more paranoia. It used to be enough to *tell* someone   
about the dream-within-a-dream, but then I started   
dreaming that I'd told someone about the dream, etc.

If nothing else, nights like these at least prove that I   
*do* trust myself. It feels good to realize that I usually   
have some measure confidence in my ability to sift dream   
from reality, even if reality itself is often ephemeral.

Some small measure. 

I'm writing this down, though, and I don't think my brain   
is so advanced that I'd still be able to read these words   
if I was really asleep. 

Then again, I plan on destroying this record immediately   
after I'm done, so it's entirely possible that I'll be   
right back where I started. 

Well, not quite. I looked outside, and Alex is gone. For   
now. For now?

If I knew what was going on in his head, I could plan some   
appropriate course of action. I think I know, but I can't   
trust. None of my other profiles changed this often. Part   
of me thinks Alex is absolutely positive he's being   
crystal-clear. "Here I am, Mulder..."

Part of me *knows* Alex knows that he's doing an excellent  
job on me. It's what he was trained for...

Part of me just wants to be able to shoot him, another   
points out that it would be profoundly stupid to shoot   
an informant, another points out that that's not the *real*  
reason I can't shoot him, another thinks I should've gone   
back to bed an hour ago.

It all adds up to the idea that I'm too close to the   
subject to profile effectively, and should report my   
unfitness to the SAC immediately and take a vacation some   
place warm.

Or at least tell Scully precisely who has been keeping me  
up nights working on the wrong assignments and let her  
arrest him.

He's looking at me like I'm insane again. I can see him. 

But he's not really here.

I want to resolve to catch hold of him and *make* him   
tell me what's going on. Or catch hold of him and figure it  
out for myself. But I feel as though making that sort of   
resolution *guarantees* I'll never see him again. Not in   
such a convenient way, at least.

Perhaps he's only so eager to be caught in my dreams.   
Perhaps this is only particularly lazy surveillance, or a   
warning of surveillance to come. Perhaps if I ever reach   
out for him he'll disappear in a spangle of dark glitter.

Or simply prove himself a statue tethered to my waist. 

It's a terrifying thought. Alex could be a perfectly   
mundane Krycek of a thug, mooning over something he   
can't have for the sole reason that it's... something he   
can't have.

Reason enough to catch him next time, cure myself   
instantly of this idiotic dream. Show it to be nothing but   
banal lust on his part and childish fantasy on my own,   
and thus be free. 

Only I don't think I want to be free at all.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~


End file.
